


Blood on the Tracks

by Demiii



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: ;), Caesar's Legion, Canon Continuation, Epilogue, Fallout Video Game References, Fallout: Van Buren Content, Gen, Guns, I Wrote This While Listening to Carly Rae Jepsen's Music, Independent New Vegas (Fallout), Mechanics, Musical References, NCR | New California Republic, i wrote this just so i could nerd about guns, when the hell does music cut off in fallout???
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:14:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28551462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demiii/pseuds/Demiii
Summary: Courier Six has done all he can. He's given New Vegas it's own flag, he's watched it grow from a fought-over city into its own city-state. He's done his best to give life to this desert oasis.He's done all he's can for the Mojave, so now the Courier decides to go back home.This time, this lonesome road ain't so lonesome.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Blood on the Tracks

He’s done a lot.

United New Vegas under one flag, just as Ulysses suggested. His own. The flag of the old world was Ulysses’s symbol, his idea of an America that had one since existed, and could exist again. It was that idea that lead him to leave Caesar’s Legion and forge down his own path. That, and the package he had delivered himself one day, long ago.

After the battle of Hoover Dam, he raised a flag of blue, a white star, bundles of flowers, and a golden banner above that read ‘Battle Born’. It was fitting to him, after all that had happened with this one city. Long ago, it was the state of Nevada’s flag, before it united with Southern California and Hawaii to be turned into the Southwest Commonwealth; representing a star on the flag that Ulysses wore.

The battle of Hoover Dam had a lot of consequences, many that were immediate, and many that had yet to be seen.

The New California Republic was pushed out by a mob of upgraded Securitrons and the residents of the city, declaring their independence in a way that surprised even himself. The NCR had long planned on pushing east, to both unite the midwest and beyond under the flag of the bear, and to bring the bull of the Legion under their own flag. For now, they had to retreat back to their capital to lick their wounds, as well as deal with their president, who is most certainly being thrown out of his office at this very moment.

The Legion was pushed back beyond the Colorado River, back to their land where they would plan their next move. They had desired to untie the west to shore up a front as they continued their conquest eastward, but now that front was possibly wide open to any number of threats: NCR, the Brotherhood, even Vegas itself, should he so desire. For the moment, Caesar yet lives, and this is the first time he’s ever lost a campaign and only that man knows what may come next. From the last time he had met the man, his tent had an Auto-Doc in it, so the man himself may not know what comes next just yet. At the moment, Lanius’s death has a bigger impact on the Legion.

His own companions had gone their separate ways, everyone on good terms, with the promise to meet again some day.

Raul had stayed behind in Vegas, who works as the head mechanic of the place, and keeps the lights on.

Veronica had left the Brotherhood permanently and joined the Followers of the Apocalypse, determined to put her skills to use in the forward-thinking organization. Last he saw her, she was in the fort in Freeside.

Arcade went back to the remnants of the Enclave, helping him win the battle of Hoover Dam. He hasn’t seen him since.

Cass and Lily both vanished after the battle, he hadn’t the faintest where they could be.

Boone remained in New Vegas, working as a guard and trying to be some form of a police force for the fledgling city.

Rex and ED-E remained in New Vegas, helping Boone and Veronica respectively.

As he said, lots have been done. Sometimes he wished that it would end, and he may be able to lay down his arms and live something a bit more comfortable.

If that had happened, then he wouldn’t be Courier Six.

Six was laying down on the sand of the Mojave, which he’s gotten very intimate with these past few years. The six months since Hoover Dam have been slow, while he’s no leader figure for the city of New Vegas, he felt it hard to part with the city when it was turning into a lawless hell of antiquity. He had become Mr. House in that way, he supposed. He held his rifle in his hands, folks round here just called it an anti-material rifle, which wasn’t wrong. He knew it by it’s given name, the PGM Hecate. A rifle made by the French almost three centuries ago. His eye was peering through the scope, scanning the desert for his target.

Finally, by a paved road passing through the desert, his crosshair settled on the bastard. A Fiend in power armor. Loosely cobbled together with duct tape and exposed electronics. Such was how the Fiends did things, as much as they wanted to act differently, the Fiends were simply raiders with a fancy name if a little more coked up.

This particular Fiend was starting to become a legend of sorts in the community, especially in Freeside. He would come around once every week and extort the poor bastards for every cap they had, citing ‘protection’ taxes. Of course, Freeside being what it was, he had both no obligation to help the settlement nor any responsibility for it, but this was both out of the kindness of his heart, and so that he doesn’t get any ideas to start shooting up the gate.

Mostly the second one.

He wasn’t doing this for pay, so there was no need to avoid the head like the bounties he collected for the major at Camp McCarran. The Fiend was also wearing a helmet, his armor was barely recognizable as the T-51 series, which Six doubted he would recognize if he wasn’t wearing that helmet. He noted the lack of glint of a visor from their helmet.

Taking his crosshair off of the head honcho, he saw the rest of his entourage. For someone who carried himself like his shit don’t stink, he had a small posse. Four others, garbed in the loose leather scrappings that the raiders in the Mojave called ‘armor’, with no helmets, and having various melee weapons.

He doubted he even needed to kill the others, they would probably go running as soon as the first shot went off.

The hill he was on was tall enough that he was looking from above them, and maybe just out of earshot for them to hear the sound of a bullet coming with the wind and general desert ambiance. To them, it may sound like a knock, but in the middle of the desert, that may be still considered ‘odd’.

His crosshairs returned to the Fiend of the day. His rifle was goddamn .50 caliber, but it would have a hard time piercing their armor, especially from this far away, probably about three hundred feet. Unless he could land the trickshot of landing the bullet into the slit that served as a visor. The other option was hitting the armor itself. The electronics are exposed, and it’s not like it’s hard to hit, so this may work out after all. The problem is that he’d need to kill the other four, but that shouldn’t be a problem.

His crosshairs moved to the exposed panel on the waist portion of the armor, recognizing it as the circuit that connected the servos of the armor. Who knew that repairing Gannon’s outdated armor would help him like this?

He centered his sights on that general area, waited for the wind to die down, and slowly squeezed the trigger. He held his breath as he pulled it the final few millimeters, and the rifle made an ear-shattering ‘bang’.

A moment later, the Fiends turned their heads, the wind carrying the sound, but the bullet hit its mark. The circuits on the armor started to spark, and try as he might, the Fiend was a sitting duck. They shouted amongst themselves, no one understanding a damn thing about how power armor worked, but that just meant there were five sitting ducks.

Turning his rifle, Six had another Fiend in his sight, firing another round that entered through his shoulder and out the other. He dropped dead instantly, blood on the power armor’s legs. The shouts grew louder.

Six repeated the process three more times, a bullet fired, and a fiend dropping to the ground.

When the last fiend was lying dead, he turned his scope to the one in armor, making sure that he was still motionless. He was squirming as he panicked, but he had not moved from that spot.

Six gathered himself to his feet, hoisting his rifle over his shoulder with a strap, and strode himself through the sand to his target.

Six stopped himself in front of him, the Fiend yelling various obscenities and expletives that every raider spouted out regardless of the situation. Without the power from the armor, he sounded muffled, as the speaker in the helmet didn’t work at all. Six reached up, unbuckled the helmet, and threw it to the ground.

The Fiend was nothing he hadn’t seen before: overly tanned, covered in dirt and scars, yellowing teeth, and bloodshot eyes.

“You motherfucker! When I get out of this fucking armor I’m going to skin you alive and eat it right in front of you!” The raider yelled and yelled and yelled.

Six could only shake his head. Could these raiders say anything at all? All they knew were curses and the names of drugs. They made the Khans look like aristocrats.

Six reached into his duster and pulled out a pistol from his breast pocket. A compact 1911, a custom one, a gift from the Burning Man himself after they parted ways at Zion. Greek engraved along each side of the barrel, that Six had no idea what it meant. He had asked Joshua what it meant after he gave it to him, to which he replied: ‘You are the light shining in the darkness. Spread that light to wherever it may reach’.

Whatever the hell that actually meant, only those of the faith knew. If Six knew anything about Joshua, it’s that he wanted Six to interpret it as he saw fit.

Six saw himself as neither a crusader of the wicked nor some villain. He was simply a man trying to get by, even if he was dragged into things far above him, he tried his best to have as many people live as possible.

He raised the pistol to the forehead of the raider, whose shouts and pleas and threats started to blend together into one big word of profanity.

Six squeezed the trigger and saw the bullet enter the Fiend’s skull, and watched his head go limp, tongue hanging out.

Six looked around at the squad of raider’s lifeless bodies. What the backup had was standard for the raiders to have, but there were mechanics and engineers, even among raiders. There was bound to be one of them that could repair this hunk of junk, and they were decently close to raider territory.

He put the pistol back into his coat and then reached into the side of his bag on his back. He pulled out a small brick of C4 he saved for an occasion not too far from this one. Power armor was designed to handle explosions much bigger and much more powerful than what this plastic explosive was capable of, but the lack of plating in areas meant a workaround was possible.

He got on his knees and laid a brick into the backside of the armor, held in place by the space between the plating and hydraulics. If he couldn’t blow the whole thing up, then he could blow the part that makes it move, ain’t no one walking around with a 300lb breastplate by their lonesome.

Six stood back up and walked a good distance down the road back to Vegas, sparing the Fiend and his armor one last look, and clicking the detonator. He watched the armor ceremoniously spark in an electrical fire, the armor crumpling to the ground. He gave it no second thought as he marched down the road, back to the free city of New Vegas.

* * *

“My man! Homeslice! Bombdiggity! It’s been a while!” Yes Man’s incredibly loud and incredibly joyful voice always took him a little off guard when he went into the same room as him. That held true even back when Yes Man was a Securitron held hidden in Benny’s secret room, and it went triple for him being a gigantic monitor with god knows how many speakers surrounding him. He was where House was when Six first arrived in Vegas, one of the highest suites in the Lucky 38.

Six unbuckled his helmet, letting the ventilated room’s cold air smack him in the face. He wiped some partly-dry sweat off his face that had mixed in with his beard. Waiting for those raiders took some time, and sitting in the desert with a helmet was terrible; being a gas mask and all about breathing helped, but damn is it hot in the Mojave.

“How’re things, Yes Man?” He asked his robotic compatriot. His voice came out rougher than it usually was, the lack of water being the main culprit.

“Oh, it’s all going just great! Everyone is happy, the cash is coming, and there are little to no reports of crime! It’s all wonderful!”

Six was sure that everything except the second part was white lies, but he had no reason to rain on Yes Man’s parade.

“That’s good. That’s good.” He said half as a response, half to himself. He came here to do one simple thing, as tough as that simple thing may be. “Yes Man?”

“Yes?”

“I’m here to say goodbye.”

Yes Man didn’t say anything for a minute, neither did his monitor even flicker. Until his monitor changed, for the first time Six had ever seen. From his usual smiling portrait, it changed into one of sadness.

“Oh no! Say it ain’t so, friend!” Yes Man declared in a profounding sadness. Six offered him a bittersweet smile.

“It is. There’s nothing left for me in Vegas. I think it’s time I went back home.”

“Home?! I thought New Vegas was your new home?!” Yes Man was pleading rather than asking.

“For a time, but this place doesn’t need me. Vegas won’t ever have a leader, that’s just the place this is. I trust you to protect it, Yes Man. That’s how much I trust you.”

Yes Man sniffled a few sniffles, made the sound of blowing his nose, and another sound that Six could only assume was him wiping his face?

“I’m gonna miss you, so, so much.”

“I’ll miss you, too. This is all here because you helped me. Don’t forget that.”

Yes Man didn’t reply, he gave a couple sniffles that served as a substitute for a nod.

“I’m not leaving yet, it won’t be for another week. I’ve gotta finish the car.”

Yes Man’s monitor flickered back to his normal smiling one.

“You’ve got a car?!”

Six closed his eyes at the volume of Yes Man, and looked back up after a moment.

“Yep. Found it sort of working in the Divide. Beats walking around here, but the road back to Colorado’s a long one.”

“You’re going to Colorado?!”

Six stuck a pinkie in his ear to get the ringing out.

“I wanted you to be the first to know.”

More sniffles from Yes Man, but his monitor didn’t change from his normal happy face.

Six heard a buzzing noise and saw a Securitron at the side of the console in front of him drop to the ground. It’s screen faded to a black before popping back like it was just switched on and off, and it shot back to its feet. It rushed toward Six and wrapped it’s weird, hose-like arms around him in a hug.

“Thank you…”

Six could barely see out of the corner of his eye that Yes Man’s face was displaying itself from the monitor of the Securitron, and could clearly hear the sniffles and cries of Yes Man through the speakers of the robot, who was so close that it was threatening to give him tinnitus.

“Uh… Yes Man? I’m not leaving yet.”

Yes Man shushed him.

“Just… give me a minute.”

The amount of time that Yes Man held him was far, far longer than a minute.

* * *

Six put the key in the ignition and twisted it. He held it.

Nothing.

He did it again.

Nothing.

One more time.

The engine roared to life, the car slightly bouncing as it ran.

Six had no idea how he’d managed it, but he somehow reworked this damn Humvee’s engine into one that could run off electricity and could feed off the energy cells he’d found throughout the wastes. The drive to Colorado was a long one, he knew it took damn near close to a week to walk there, but with a car, he’d reckon it take more like a day.

This thing, which he’d assumed was once a military vehicle despite its lack of identification, he’d found in the Divide. He’d gotten it out with a mix of Ulysses, Marcus and Lily, and a borrowed Vertiberd from the Enclave remnants.

He had already stored the car with a few spare weapons, repair parts, ammo, clothes, and food and water. His conversation with Yes Man was merely yesterday, but if he so desired, he could leave right now. His affairs were in order: Yes Man would handle the city, Veronica could handle the Followers, Raul and Boone were set, ED-E and Rex were good help to them. The city was in good hands.

He was planning on only telling Yes Man, he had lost the nerve to say goodbye to his former companions the moment he came to this decision. He had left a note in the terminal in his suite, one that explained his decision, his hopes for each of them, and his individual goodbyes.

He remembered being amused when he wrote down his wishes for each of them. Six wasn’t even thirty, but here he was, spouting out his wishes for his friends like he was Raul’s age.

He’d been in California for most of the decade, barely spending the last two years in this particular desert. He left home long ago because there was nothing there for him to do, other than be a raider, he left long ago to California once he was old enough, nothing on his person except his clothes and the pistol at his side.

Ten years later, he’s made out something decent for himself.

He got up from the driver's seat and down to the ground below of Michael Angelo’s workshop. It was the only place in town that had a garage door on the strip and had the tools he needed. Angelo was only too happy to lend the space to Six after the help he had been with taking some photos.

He walked to a table that held his helmet. One he grabbed from his trip to the Divide: a gas mask was connected to it, radio and antenna, gas filter, even night vision if powered with energy cells. The rest of his armor was from the same set of a certain NCR officer back from when the Divide had a population that wasn’t ravid ghouls and tunnelers. It was already modified, which he modified further: He removed one of the knee pads, only the right one stayed, both pauldrons were removed, and the left bracer was removed so he could put on his Pip-Boy.

Ah, the Pip-Boy. A gift from Doc Mitchell after he nursed him back to health after he got shot in the head. He could use the thing as a map, clock, journal, even as an emergency medic.

He raised his left arm and twisted the knob of it. The screen flashed to life in solid green and he checked the time, it was 11:00 pm. Most of the city was awake at this point, Vegas being the city of sins that it was.

Six climbed back into the driver’s seat of the still running Humvee, placing his helmet on the dash and looking toward the onboard terminal that he installed. Setting it up wasn’t very hard, just had to yoink the electronics out of the thing, attach the car battery as a power supply, and he used the casing of a wall terminal and welded that thing into the console. It looked pretty good if he had to say so himself. His dad would definitely be impressed, he was the one who taught him how to do all this.

He pulled down the keyboard, which he put angled toward himself and typed with one hand. He put in a password to let him log in and let him do most things a dash console would do, plus a couple extra goodies he put in just for himself. He turned on a setting that would prohibit the engine from running unless he signs in on it first, which made the engine turn off. He twisted the key again just to make sure it would, and it did, and took the key out and put it in his coat pocket. Below the terminal was a stereo, which was already included in the car when he found it, plus a holotape reader.

He got out of the car, closing the door behind him and walked out the front door to Michael Angelo’s workshop. He stepped out until he ended on the sidewalk in front of the road. This little workshop was a section that was past the casino’s, where most of the nightlife was; the only people prowling this particular street were maintenance workers, peacekeepers, and the occasional drunkard walking into the wrong building.

Six reached into his coat and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and took one into his mouth, lighting it up with a Zippo lighter with an engraving of a pinup girl on it. A souvenir to remember Benny by after he chased down the Khans that he hired at Boulder City. Benny himself was likely piled in a mass grave dug by the Legion after Six put a bullet in his head with Benny’s hands bound. This time, the one shot stayed still.

He took a deep drag of his smoke, closing his eyes and letting himself be absorbed by the atmosphere: the sound of criers and gamblers upset, the smell of smoke, booze, and sex, the almost omnipotent feeling of freedom that carried the air of the city. Six had ventured to many cities on his time on the west coast: the NCR, Vault City, New Reno, San Francisco; none of them held the same air of Vegas, not even close. Try as hard as he might, Six would never forget this place, but he had little reason to.

He stood like this for a good while, taking a drag every now and then, excusing himself from an occasional drunkard in the wrong place.

Until he was interrupted by a Securitron.

“Sir. We have a message from Yes Man.” The Securitron, with a grizzled army soldier face on the screen of its chassis, said. Under the screen was a slot, out of which a holotape fell out of, which he handed to Six. “This is for you.”

Six glanced from the screen in front of him to the holotape, and back to the screen. He took the tape hesitantly, unsure of if he should say anything. He didn’t get a chance to as the robot wheeled itself out of eyesight.

He stared at the holotape, nothing was unique about this one, no markings on it either. He tried putting into the reader in his Pip-Boy, but the only thing that happened was a ‘no media’ message on the screen.

Whatever it was, it needed a terminal to use. Probably had some inputs.

And right now, he decided he needed some sleep.

He took one last drag, threw the cig away, and stomped it out, before returning to the garage.

* * *

Here it was. Today was the day.

Six sat in the driver's seat of his car, open garage door in front of him, in the wee hours of the morning, which in this case was 6:00 am. Late enough that everyone would be passed out from drinking, early enough that those that didn’t would be barely getting up. All that was left, was putting things in motion.

So he did.

He inputted the password to the terminal and put the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life.

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, going through a final checklist in his head.

Gear? Cleaned and maintained.

Provisions? Food and water in the trunk.

Ammo? Few boxes in the trunk, couple of boxes of energy cells for fuel.

Spare parts? First thing he did.

Oh. There was one thing.

Six reached over into the glove box and pulled out the holotape that the Securitron had given him last night. He put it into the console of the car and the terminal gave a ‘reading’ message.

Then the engine stopped.

The terminal went to black.

“What the f…” Six mumbled to himself.

He had spent all this time making this damn car run off of practically nothing and now it decides to stop working? At this, exact, perfect moment?

Just when he was about to get out of the car and smack the engine with a really big stick, the terminal flickered back to life. It started with static before an image came onto the screen.

The familiar image made Six smile.

“Hellloooooooooo!” The unmistakable voice of Yes Man blasted through the speakers of the car, which made Six reflexively turn the knobs.

“What in the hell…” Six mumbled to himself.

“Good! I can hear you!”

“Yes Man? What…”

“I am Yes Man, but also not him. I am a copy of his data that he copied onto this disk to serve as your onboard A.I! I am programmed to do what you say, and can act as a voice command recognition system, so you don’t have to press a button! Cool, huh?”

Six wasn’t even confused at this point, this was such a Yes Man move that it made him feel stupid that he never saw this coming. An onboard A.I that meant he didn’t have to press any buttons in the middle of a crappy situation was a blessing from a god that he didn’t believe in. Maybe he should start praying.

“What can you do?” Six asked.

“Glad you asked! In addition to commands pre-programmed into this terminal, I can also connect with the vehicle itself. I can use autopilot, regulate processes, and even use combat mode!”

“Combat mode?” Six asked. He didn’t install any weapons onto this car, but Yes Man had done crazier shit.

“Don’t worry about it! With luck, we’ll never have to use it and with how awesome you are, I’m confident that we won’t!”

Six gave a small smirk and shook his head. This robot had more confidence in him than he has in himself.

“Anything else I should know about?”

Yes Man made a thinking noise, punctuated by a loud ‘oh!’.

“I’ve taken the liberty of copying over both yours and Mr. Houses music libraries onto this holotape, along with whatever other songs and albums I could find on the network. You can jam to whatever you find! Peruse at your leisure.”

“Sweet.”

Six used the keyboard as he scrolled through the library of music. Lots of stuff he’s heard before, some he hasn’t, House had an extensive collection, mostly Jazz, Big Band, basically anything with a horn section.

For this occasion, Six had just the song in mind. Pressing the ‘enter’ key on a song well over two hundred years old as the sounds came through the speakers of the car, the sound of sad organs and slow drums filling the car.

“Yes Man, the gates through the districts open?”

“Already are! Just don’t accidentally hit anyone while you’re leaving! Don’t want to ruin the spiffy paint job with some red!”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Six said, chuckling to himself.

He put his foot on the gas, slowly stepping on it, coming out of the garage and onto the roads of Vegas. He drove the surprisingly empty streets of New Vegas and through the checkpoints. He was surprised to see some inhabitants of the place coming out.

The roads next to the casinos were lined with Securitrons offering a salute. To the one who gave them new power, a new assignment, a new purpose. A little poetic for a bunch of robots, but that was how Yes Man felt after the battle of Hoover Dam. It even touched Six, but knowing that he had Yes Man right with him, he didn’t even feel the need to wave.

So kept driving onward.

Out the gate of the Vegas Strip.

Out of the entrance to Freeside.

Onto the road southeast. The road north held the Boomers, and although he was alright in their eyes, the moment they see a car they would definitely blow it the hell up. He drove the road southeast, to the place he hadn’t been to in six months, yet whose image was burned into his memories.

Hoover Dam.

The Dam was quiet, incredibly so. Just a few months ago, the NCR had this place on lockdown, the Legion hovering over the hills above. Now? It was a ghost town, the only inhabitants being Securitrons that Six himself had ordered to guard the place. There was no telling if the Legion would come back, and if they did then he would know the second they even put up a pair of binoculars.

Now, the concern was no longer his.

He drove across the dam, the Securitrons paying him no mind as he cruised past, ending up on the other side with not so much as a murmur.

Driving to the open field past the damn, Six released a breath he had no idea he was holding. The last time he was on this side of the river, he killed Lanius. The time before that? He was barely considered a man.

“Sooooo… Sorry if this is out of line, but, where are we headed?” Yes Man asked from the console, his voice cutting the music off. Six glanced at the former Securitron and then back to the road.

“I’m taking the road north, up to Utah and through to Colorado. I’d prefer to not go to Arizona, dunno how much a grudge the Legion’s got on me.”

“Ooooh. Good idea. Better to not get shot in the head twice, am I right?”

Hell, even Six laughed at that.

“If you need me, I’ll be here.” Yes Man offered as he dissolved to static as the terminal normal screen displayed.

“Thanks, Yes Man.” Six solemnly said.

He was thanking him for two separate things, but he was sure the robot knew what he was talking about. Or… maybe not.

Six checked that the road was clear and straight as he put one eye on the terminal and one hand on the keyboard, searching for some new tunes. He found one and put it on, it didn’t have any meaning to what was going on, but rather, he just liked the song.

He put his elbow on the window, put his fist on his chin, and let himself melt into the road and the music.

_I don’t know just where I’m going._

_But I’m gonna try for the kingdom, if I can._

_Cause it makes me feel like I’m a man._

_When I put a spike into my vein._

_And I’ll tell ya, things aren’t quite the same._

_When I’m rushing on my run._

_And I feel just like Jesus’ son._

_And I guess that I just don’t know._

_And I guess that I just don’t know._


End file.
